This Milk and Cookies Cake has chocolate chip filled vanilla cake layers, a chocolate chip cookie dough filling, and a creamy buttercream frosting. It’s milk and cookies turned into a cake!
Birthday Cakes
I mentioned in some of my other posts that my son, daughter, and husband all have birthdays within a few weeks of each other. Between my kids’ parties and school treats, and everyone’s actual birthday dinner, I have about six cakes to make in a short period of time.
Since I want everyone to have something special and unique, I try to do something different for each event. This year, for my son’s family birthday dinner, I made him this milk and cookies cake.
A Cake Mishap
I have made similar cakes in the past, the last being Christmas Eve 2 years ago. That particular cake traumatized me and I didn’t try again until this year.
When I made that cake, I was 8 months pregnant with my daughter. I suppose I can blame pregnancy brain for the mistake that I made: I had made the cake a few days early, so I froze it. However, I didn’t level it before I froze it. On Christmas Eve I removed it from the freezer and tried to level it then. My cake leveler wouldn’t cut through the cake, so I tried with a serrated knife. This cake is dense as it is, so it took a lot of force …. I ended up spending Christmas Eve in the ER having my finger stitched up.
Milk and Cookies Cake
This year though, I wanted to try again! I learned from my prior mishap, and leveled the cake the day I made it. My fingers remained intact and the cake was a success. My son loved it!
Here are a few notes and tips on making this Milk and Cookies Cake:
- I wanted this cake to remind you of eating milk and cookies with the chocolate chips suspended throughout the cake layers, so, the cake is dense. It is not dry, but dense.
- The ‘cookie dough’ filling can be made with multiple types of flour. I prefer the taste of all purpose flour in the filling, but I know there are many recommendations about cooking flour due to the risks of eating it raw. As I didn’t want to get into that with this post, I made the filling with almond flour. I took it to a dinner a couple of weeks ago to get some thoughts, and everyone agreed, it still tastes delicious!
- For the cookies on top, you can use store bought small cookies, bake refrigerated cookie dough, or make your own. Honestly, they’re mainly for decor as opposed to taste, so I do whatever is easiest.
Milk and Cookies Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened
- 1 ¾ cup sugar
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 large eggs
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 tbsp cornstarch
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
Filling
- ½ cup unsalted butter softened
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 cup flour almond, coconut or all-purpose flours will work, see notes above
- 2 tbsp sweet cream coffee creamer
- ¼ cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
Frosting
- ½ cup unsalted butter softened
- ½ cup all vegetable shortening
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- pinch salt
- 3-4 tbsp sweet cream coffee creamer
- 4 cups powdered sugar
Ganache
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
- ½ tbsp light corn syrup
- ¾ cup heavy whipping cream
Decorating
- Small chocolate chip cookies 8 cookies about 1.5” round
- Mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line three, 8” baking pans with parchment paper. Grease and flour sides of pans (I use Baking PAM for this).
- Use electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment to beat butter and sugar until lightened and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Next, beat in vanilla extract.
- Add eggs, one at a time, scraping down sides as needed, until well incorporated.
- In a medium sized bowl, stir together flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Starting and ending with buttermilk, alternate beating flour mixture and buttermilk into butter mixture. Do this in at least 3 additions of each.
- Divide batter evenly among the prepared pans. Sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over the tops of the three pans (this helps keep chips from all sinking to the bottom).
- Bake until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out with just a few crumbs, about 24 minutes.
- Let cool in pan for at least 5 minutes before transferring to rack to cool completely.
Filling
- Use electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment to beat butter until lightened, about 2 minutes. Next beat in vanilla extract.
- In a small bowl, stir together powdered sugar and flour. Beat mixture into butter, about ½ cup at a time, scraping down sides as needed.
- Beat in coffee creamer until well mixed. Stir in chocolate chips.
Frosting
- Use electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment to beat butter and shortening until lightened, about 2 minutes. Next beat in vanilla extract and salt.
- Beat in 1 cup of powdered sugar, followed by 1 tbsp of coffee creamer, until desired consistency and sweetness is achieved.
Assembly
- Level cakes. Use frosting to pipe a border around the outside of two of the leveled cakes. Divide filling evenly between these two cakes. Stack the two cakes on top of each other. Place final cake layer, level sided down, on top.
- Use frosting to apply a thin layer of frosting around entire cake. Place cake in refrigerator or freezer for 10-20 minutes. Remove and finish frosting sides and top of cake. Save about 1 cup of frosting to use for final décor.
- Press mini chocolate chips into bottom of cake, about 1 inch high, entire circumference.
- Place chocolate and corn syrup in a heat safe bowl. In a microwave safe bowl, heat whipping cream until boiling, about one minute. Pour over chocolate and corn syrup. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let sit for 5 minutes.
- Remove plastic and whisk until smooth.
- Transfer mixture to a squeeze bottle and drop chocolate down sides of cake. Then spread evenly over top of cake.
- Use remaining frosting to pipe 8 small mounds around top of cake (see photos). Place small cookies in each of the mounds.
Disclaimer: All nutritional information provided on this website is an estimate only and is not guaranteed.
If you enjoyed this Milk and Cookies Cake, you might enjoy these other SugarSpicesLife recipes:
Funfetti Cookie Cake
Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
Lemon Cranberry Cake
Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake
Links to items used to make this recipe:
